


Scoops

by Unscriptedtimetraveler



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25132240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unscriptedtimetraveler/pseuds/Unscriptedtimetraveler
Summary: During a day at the beach with the team, you and Bucky head off in search of something to cool you off, and you end up finding something much better.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Reader, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Scoops

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The last time I wrote a full individual one shot was probably last year. It’s been a while. This fic was actually started last summer and then I lost inspiration so it just sat unedited until I rewrote it recently.
> 
> Rating: Fluff
> 
> Warnings: mentions of food
> 
> Thank you for reading and feedback of any kind is always greatly appreciated. Enjoy!

“That’s disgusting.”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it Buck.”

Bucky watched with uncertainty as you dipped yet another french fry into your bowl of vanilla ice cream, the smallest bit of chocolate sauce falling onto the snack. You bit the end of the fry off, thoroughly enjoying yourself.

After two long weeks on seemingly endless missions and meetings, you and the rest of the Avengers needed a break to just relax. Two long hours of debating over where to go later, everyone seemed pretty content with the idea of going to the beach for the day. 

By now everyone was happily enjoying their time in the sun away from all the chaos. Whether they were swimming, splashing one another, tanning, or just sitting with a book in one hand and a drink in the other, everyone was relaxing without a care in the world. 

You spent time with the others for a while, but due to the scorching rays of the sun, you decided to wander off in search of something else to cool you off. Wading nearly waist deep into the water, you yelled out to the others if they wanted to come. Nearly everyone declined with the exception of Bucky. He followed you back out of the water to tie his hair up in a bun and shrug on the leaf-printed button up he’d picked for the day. It only took the two of you about fifteen minutes to stumble upon a little blue colored diner that was only a brisk walk away from where you had all set up. 

Once the two of you had ordered and gotten your food, you sat down at the outside table area that overlooked the ocean. It was quieter than the inside of the diner area, which happened to be full of people interested in watching whatever sports game was being broadcasted at the moment. It was just you, Bucky, and your strange choice in food.

Bucky stuck another spoonful of his own ice cream into his mouth as you pushed the red fry basket towards him. He narrowed his eyes playfully, “No.”

“C’mon Bucky, just try it. You know you want to,” you pleaded, still inching the basket closer.

“And ruin the ice cream?”

“It’s not ruining it. I wouldn’t offer it to you if it was going to be gross. It’s just one little, itty-bitty, tiny fry!” you reasoned. You could see as he was trying to hide his smirk at your antics.  
Giving in, Bucky pulled a fry from the basket, holding it straight up, “You’ve convinced me, though I still think it’s going to be gross.”

Mimicking him and tapping your own fry against his as if you were clinking glasses together, you replied, “And I think you’re about to be proved wrong.” 

Dipping your fry in, you watched in satisfaction as Bucky actually looked like he was enjoying it. 

He licked the salt off his lips, actually not too annoyed at the fact that he was proved wrong with his assumptions. “It’s weird, but I guess it wasn't, you know, terrible.” 

You smiled back, turning in your chair slightly, “It’s okay, you can say it. I was right. Admit it.”

Eyes lingering on you as you turned back to your food, Bucky let out a small laugh,“I guess you were.”

He turned away to stare out at the beach, just watching the waves pull in and out. Bucky would be lying to himself if he said that the only motivation for joining you on your quest for something cool was so he could find some quick relief from the heat. The truth was, he was trying to think of ways to be alone with you all day. He thought about asking you to join him on a walk to the pier, somehow get you alone while you laid out on the sand, and even went as far as to try and come up with a way to see if you’d take a trip with him to go check the parking meter expiration. While he was secretly caught up in mulling over his thoughts, you’d beaten him to it with an invitation to find something sweet and a smile that was even more so. 

He’d been trying to find a place and a time that was right to tell you how he really felt about you, but like all the other times the past few months, it had proven much more daunting than he anticipated. 

For the longest time, he tried ignoring his feelings entirely. It didn’t matter how much his heart sped up when you talked to him about a book he recommended to you or how you made him feel like he’d melt into a puddle when you hugged him, he would just have to forget about anything that jeopardized your friendship. He knew how to put on a poker face and mask himself from the world when needed, so it was something he should have had no problem in managing. It was supposed to be something he could just live with. 

However, the more he tried to ignore them, the more intense they got. Your laugh was his siren call, pulling him in with no escape, your confidence was something that captivated his entire heart, and the time you went out of your way to make him a special scrapbook so he could remember all the happy times in his life, including those memorialized in photos and letters he’d thought he’d lost way back before the war, for his birthday, he might as well have been shot in the back and sent to heaven then and there.

No matter what you had always made him feel like he was worth more than what his head screamed at him, and you never once expected him to be somebody he wasn’t. His past wasn’t something that dictated his entire personality. Instead, you saw it as that, the past, and you helped him grow from it to discover who he was and what he liked in the current times. It was something that shaped him but didn’t define him. You helped him drive to and from his therapy sessions if he asked and even had snacks in the car after he was done, helped to discover that he really likes 80’s sci-fi movies, you didn’t mind spending time with him even if it was something like the two of you reading your books at a table together. 

You never made him feel like he needed to work on finding the old him. Instead, you’d accepted who he was in that moment. In your eyes he didn’t need to revert back to someone he clearly wasn’t anymore, he just needed someone to show him that who he was now was simply wonderful. You made him feel like Bucky and that was enough. 

He told himself that you were only ever going to be a friend, and that with such feelings, he’d only risk hurting another person in his life one way or another. He just had to try harder and stuff the feelings down even deeper than before and surely no one would notice. 

It was a good revision to the plan in his head, but it didn’t last long because not only two days later, Sam caught onto how lovesick he looked every time you two were in the same room together. 

Sam confronted him about it after everyone else had left the training room for the afternoon. Bucky had just finished his last set of chest presses when Sam nearly knocked the wind out of him with, “So, are you going to finally tell Y/n about how you feel or are you just going to keep holding it in? Because let me tell you man, you looked like you were going to pass out when they were sparring with Natasha earlier.” 

From then on, Sam had been the one to try to help get him that push he needed to officially ask you out. He may have had his signature smirk on that one day, but he could genuinely see the turmoil Bucky had faced in the walls he’d built around himself. 

He’d help Bucky when he felt insecure and offer feedback on ideas of potential plans to finally confess his adoration to you since the only time he’d even come close to telling you was a morning he invited you to “pickup coffee for the team” but thanks to some idiot spewing about how he was going to use files from the compound to lead an attack on the nearby cities in the name of a new branch of Hydra, an emergency mission sidelined his plans. 

Now here he was, graced with the perfect opportunity to tell you. The fact that it was just you and him alone was already enough of an opportunity, but the backdrop of the sunset against the crashing waves really set it up. 

“You okay there?” you asked. You slid the empty fry basket away so that you could rest yourself against the edge of the table. 

Bucky hadn’t noticed he’d let himself zone out into his thoughts again. “Yeah of course. Just distracted by the waves.” 

His eyes then shifted from gazing towards the beach back to you. There was still the faintest smear of your ice cream resting on your lips and your hair was starting to messily curl from all the sea water still slowly dripping out. You looked so relaxed and carefree in that moment. He’d never seen you look more radiant than you did now, and in his eyes you were practically glowing. 

Bucky felt his heart rate pick up and pound in his ears again. Now was his chance. All he had to do was say what he’d been trying to say for God knows how long, but then again, what if you didn’t feel the same? Or even worse, what if you did something like laugh in his face for ever thinking that there was even the slightest bit of hope that the two of you could work? Either one would lead to him never being able to look in your eyes the same way again and suddenly he wasn’t sure if he was ready to finally let go of his fear of rejection.

If he didn’t know your answer it would make him regret himself for the rest of his life, but would settling with the discomfort be more acceptable as opposed to him ruining your relationship you’d built up? His mind spun in circles. 

But he should at least try, right? 

You began to stand up to collect your trash. “It’s actually getting pretty late, should we head back with the team?”

His heart plummeted. He was going to miss his chance again. Perhaps it really was better to just leave it like this. They could go back to the team and head home and he could go back to pretending like things were fine and dandy. His mind was screaming one thing but his heart was begging desperately for another.

“Can I talk to you about something, please?” he blurted out more abruptly than he intended, but he couldn’t help it. He had to face this. The pressure he’d been feeling sank lower onto his shoulders. 

This was it, he was doing it. No matter what happens, the fate of your relationship was already ready to be sealed for better or for worse. 

Concerned and confused at his fallen expression, you immediately sat back down to listen. “Sure. Of course.”

Here goes nothing. He was in too deep to turn back on his words now. 

Bucky inhaled deeply, the scent of salt and seagrass from the gentle breeze tickling his nose. “I need to tell you something, and I don’t know how you might take it. Hell, I don’t even know how to really say it. You, you might be mad or annoyed when I tell you but I have to tell you. I can’t keep holding it in anymore.”

“Bucky, there’s nothing you could do or say that would make me-”

“I like you,” he said as everything suddenly felt like it was going a million miles faster than it already was. “I really, really like you and I have for a while. I tried not to because you’re my friend but I couldn’t take it anymore. I don’t just see you as my friend. I wanna be yours if you’ll have me.”

He pauses, taking another deep breath before continuing, “I care so much about you that it honestly hurts and I just had to tell you. You’re the most passionate, caring, and beautiful person I’ve ever met, doll. You’re stunning in every single way and every time I think there’s no way you could get even more so, you do and I’m weak in the knees again. You’ve always been there for me through the good and definitely all of the bad but you never thought of me as less of a person. You never made me feel ashamed for not being something I wasn’t. You always saw me, just me…”

Luckily there weren’t any people at the tables near you, so if you did reject him, at least it would for the most part be kept between you. He let his eyes linger down to the sand covered sidewalk. 

“If you don’t feel the same I understand. I just couldn’t hold it in any longer and wanted to tell you. I’m sorry if this changes everything and you don’t even want to be friends anymore. ”

He let the silence simmer between you, but he was caught off guard when you held his hand in your own, the metal slightly warm from being out in the sun. He notices the faint sparkling of fresh tears evident within your eyes, yet you’re still smiling back at him.

He doesn’t get a chance to get to hear you say a response but he didn’t need it. You shifting forward to kiss him hard on the lips made it all clear as day. He stood up from his stool, with you pulling away slightly to do the same, and then kissed you deeply again. 

You sank back into the kiss instantly. Your lips were soft and sweet against his own, and he could taste the lingering vanilla on them from earlier. The coldness of your hair brushed against his blushing cheeks. Removing your hand from his own, you proceeded to wrap your arms around him, suddenly not caring if any other diner-goers from inside were watching. Without breaking the kiss, he settled his hand firmly on your hip with a squeeze. 

He had imagined what it would have been like to kiss you more times than he could count, but every fantasy he had couldn’t compare to everything he was feeling now. His whole body felt flushed like it was on fire. The warmth in his chest bloomed with every soft touch to his skin or gently tug on his hair. He was drunk off you, absolutely intoxicated and craving more and more. 

When the two of you finally broke apart for air, the sound of the waves and the chatter from inside the diner filled his ears again. He had felt as if you and him had been pulled away from the world, and he didn’t mind it in the slightest. He took a few breaths before looking back at you into your deep (eye color) eyes, a view he’d gladly lose himself in as often as you'd let him. 

“I happen to like you too,” you said softly. “You really mean all those things you said?” 

Bucky’s thumb rubbed against your chin gently as he spoke, “Of course. The truth is that you’re incredible. I was scared you weren’t going to feel the same so I kind of ignored my feelings, or at least tried to.” He felt a bit foolish admitting his insecurities to you.

You giggled and brushed the back of his hand again, “Well then, I guess we’re in the same boat then. I thought you only thought of me as a best friend.” 

“Hell no, doll. You’re much, much more than that. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, you make me feel real. Like I’m meant to be here. I’m not who I used to be and you helped me see that. You never stopped caring even when things started falling apart again. You helped me feel whole when I thought I was meant to stay broken.” 

Leaning into his chest, you held him tighter than before. “You were always meant to be here, Bucky. You’re so important to me, to everyone. I care about you so much.”

His hands trailed along your back. He was relieved that he finally confessed his feelings and still high on the adrenaline of the situation. “Does this mean you’ll give me a chance?”

Your heart threatened to burst out of your chest and it took all you had not to leap into his arms again, “Of course I will.”

Moments passed and you eventually broke the ambiance by asking, “Uh..This is a random question, but do you think the team is wondering where we are?”

Bucky hummed and looked out to the horizon. Whatever was left of the sun cast a warm yellow against the darkening sky, signaling that it was almost time for the moon and stars to make their nightly debut. “Probably. We did leave a while ago.”

“Yeah,” You gathered the bits of trash off your tabletop, “What should we tell them when we go back?”

“We got ice cream and lost track of time,” he smirked, “Technically it’s true. Or we could straight out tell them, or just not tell them.”

“I think we should let them try and figure it out, at least for a bit. See how long it takes them to catch on.” 

“Sam kinda already knows...or at least knows I wanted to ask you. I’ve kinda been bugging him with my rambling for months.”

“Then we’ll see how long it takes everyone else. My bet is on Wanda finding out first.” Bucky let out a laugh. 

The two of you then threw out your trash and began to walk back to where the rest of the team was, continuing your debate of who and when it was likely to come out that the two of you were more than friends. You’d tell the team eventually, you just wanted to see how things would go for yourselves first.

When the two of you finally made it back (you’d both gotten a little sidetracked by all the shells that washed in while you walked along the shoreline and eventually made plans for dinner plans for Saturday) the team had already started packing up.

Tony was the first to say something, “Where the hell did you two go, all the way upstate? You guys didn’t even bring anything back.” 

“We just lost track of time and I asked if you guys wanted to come,” you laughed before heading to help Natasha shake sand out of some of the beach towels. 

You set the now folded pile of beach towels aside and glanced over to Bucky who was currently putting a beach umbrella away. When he caught your gaze, he returned a smile. You would have never predicted that the events of the day would unfold like they had, but you were beyond ecstatic they did. 

Bucky went back to shoving the now collapsed umbrella into its fabric pouch, sliding it in with ease. He tied up the end and turned to see a grinning Sam.

“You guys missed it. Scott thought he saw a shark and scared the shit out of everyone.” Sam said, pausing to look between you and back to Bucky. He lowered his voice to a whisper, “You look extra happy. I take it you told them?” 

Bucky smiled at his friend, creases forming by his eyes, “I’ll tell you about it later, Wilson.”


End file.
